“The Kid” (Bastion)

"The Kid"

“The Kid” as Rucks calls him, is the only playable character in Bastion. At basic level he’s a kid with a hammer who goes around whacking stuff. Initially we don’t know very much about him, but after you unlock the first journey to “who knows where”, we are able to learn the backstory behind “the kid”. We learn much of the story about the kid from Rucks as he narrates it in the kids dream journey to Who Knows Where. The Kid didn’t know his father while he was growing up, and he only had his mother to take care of him. His mother shared the same white hair as him, and his white hair didn’t earn him any favors at school. The Kid left school and started working as a guard on the rippling walls in order to support his mother.

He worked there for at least a year before he came home one day and found his mother dead and the money they had been saving up gone. With nothing better to do, the kid returned for a second post on the rippling walls (which was unheard of) and he stayed there for a long time. While on his duty at the walls the kid learned in great depth how to destroy things and also how to build many things as well. He was sent on missions that were more dangerous than others were, and he always managed to return to tell the tale.

One day however, he was sent out on duty to explore an unknown area, and then the calamity happened. The world started falling apart around him and he kept on running…until he found relative safety in the Bastion. The kid is a master of weaponry, and excels at breaking stuff. He is good at heart and strives to help others around him. He pretty much runs around doing whatever Rucks tells him to do in order to repair the Bastion and never questions why. It is this unnerving compassion which helps him make friends with the other people he encounters during his journey (and animals), and it ultimately plays a large role in deciding the future of the world and the fate of the Bastion.